The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Dropsite’s editor for the Middle East and North Africa. He’s based in New York and in Cairo and has reported from across the globe, in the Arab world, including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, and Algeria, as well as from across the United States and internationally. He received a Peabody Award for his Gaza documentary, The Night Won’t End, George Polk Award for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Acla and an Emmy Award To boot and joins us now from his home. So Sharif, welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here in the Real News. It’s good to have you with us.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Thank you for having me.

Marc Steiner:

And thank you for the work you do. I want to start by talking to people about your work, both your written work and your documentary work, because I think you bring the depth of what people are facing in those two places that we don’t see on the news, we don’t read about, we don’t hear about, the utter devastation. I’d just like you to begin there, just from your own work as a journalist, what you’ve seen, what you’ve been through, the idea that people just don’t really understand what’s happening in places like Gaza and Lebanon and the pure devastation that people are living through.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Well, I think, I mean, that’s a broad question. I think that actually a lot of people do understand what’s happening because for the first time in terms of at least the genocide in Gaza, this is something that unfolded in real time on people’s phones because of the heroic work of Palestinian journalists and of the just residents of Gaza who are documenting the genocide of their people themselves and livestreaming it. That’s why we always hear this was a livestreamed genocide. The problem has been the coverage by legacy media, mainstream media, corporate media institutions in this country, in Europe and elsewhere that have really shown the mask has come off and that their bias has really been betrayed and they’ve lost a lot of confidence because they have consistently adopted the Israeli narrative about what’s happening in these places, a very skewed narrative, and they have not spoken to the people on the ground.

I think the work that I have done that many other journalists, independent journalists have done that places like Dropsite News is doing is actually not groundbreaking. This is simple journalism. This is speaking to and working with journalists on the ground, doing simple reporting about what’s happening. And the reality shows itself and what the reality is is horrifying. We are seeing the most brutal military campaigns in our lifetimes. There have been genocides before, but never livestreamed like this and never in the modern era, with the explicit backing and enabling of the most powerful countries in the world, the United States and Western Europe. And so this is what’s happening. I mean, we can paint a picture of where Gaza is today over two and a half years into this genocide and what the groundwork looks like and also what’s happening in Southern Lebanon as well. We’ve seen also for the first time in my life, a groundswell of opposition to Israeli policy across the political spectrum in the United States.

When I first covered the second Palestinian intifada, which went from 2000 to 2005,

I think, I don’t know, many listeners and viewers might not remember, but there used to be an acronym called PEP, progressive except for Palestine, that this was such a vilified people and such a topic that was so attacked that there could be something like that, that you could have somehow be a progressive except on Palestine, support a colonial settler state. 20 years later, this is a sea change. Palestine has become definitional to your politics, and it is at once a polarizing and mobilizing force in our society today. And that’s a testament to both the activism, the work, and the heroic work of Palestinian journalists, and also to the horrors that Israel has meted out, not just on Palestine, but on so many countries in the region.

Marc Steiner:

And I think part of that is the work that you and others have done, but some of the work you’ve done, that when you watch it, when you see it in real time on your documentaries, the pain and suffering, the utter devastation that’s taking place right now is unfathomable to most people. It is. I mean, even years back with the invasion of Cambodia and other places that some of us covered, it’s nothing like what you’re seeing now, which is the utter destruction of an entire society. What you showed the world in these two documentaries is almost, it’s difficult for people to comprehend how bad it is.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Yes. I mean, I would admit that it was difficult for me to comprehend also. Gaza is a place that I’ve been to many times as a reporter, had the privilege of getting there first in 2011 and almost every year after that, covered different wars there, the 2012 war, 2014 war, the great marches of return in 2018 when people were gunned down by Israeli snipers en masse. But as we all know, Israel and with the collusion of Egypt has not allowed international journalists into Gaza for the past two and a half years, more than two and a half years. That’s not to say that Palestinian journalists can’t cover what’s happening there, but international journalists need to get in to help shoulder some of the labor of covering this war and also to act as a shield for these Palestinian journalists who have been killed and slaughtered in an unprecedented way.

I think we’ve all been changed by this. On our phones, we’re seeing these horrific images every single day of children being killed, of hospitals being bombed, and all of this to applause by elites, by the establishment, and by both the Democratic and Republican parties. The level of devastation, I mean, when we talk about genocide, genocide, you don’t actually have to kill anyone. If you look at the definition, it’s you’re creating the conditions for life not to be able to exist, for the capacity of life not to be able to exist. So in addition to that, there is mass, mass killing happening, The count is over 73,000, and that’s an absolute minimum. Those are the confirmed numbers by the Ministry of Health, the bodies that they have been able to absolutely confirm. The numbers, by no question, much, much higher. But in addition to that, the complete erasure of life, the raising of complete communities in Bethan, in Rafah, and other villages and towns, the bombing and attacking of every single hospital where only a few hospitals are partially functioning, a starvation policy imposed on an entire population and then taking over the so- called aid distribution system.

And then you have starving people being gunned down as they try and get some food. Over 2,600 Palestinians were killed while the so- called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israel-backed group with US military contractors and Israeli troops in conjunction shot starving people as they’re trying to get food and killed them, and over 19,000 were wounded. The massacre of children, thousands and thousands of children, I think the numbers over 18,000 that are confirmed, the largest number of child amputees in the world ever, the bombing of every school, the bombing of bakeries and water facilities and electricity infrastructure and road infrastructure, the wiping out of urban life, it is very difficult to comprehend. What we tried to do in the documentary was we get these small snapshots on our phones and it’s shocking to see, but also with a long form documentary, it’s over an hour, we followed three families that you can sit with them a little bit and see what the effects of this are.

And we tried to cover their stories as microcosms of the larger war, of the larger genocide. So airstrikes, which of course is the main feature of the war. We spoke with the Salem family who over a hundred people of their family were killed in a massive airstrike on a building in Gaza City.

Also, people were told to go to the South and go to so- called safe zones. So we also follow a family who went to the South, but were bombed there and the children were killed. We also cover very specifically the case of Hind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed alongside her family in a car. She had a three-hour call with the Red Crescent. She was the only surviving member of her family. They had all been shot by an Israeli tank in this car in Gaza City, and they had just called the Red Crescent. Her cousin, her 15-year-old cousin had called. You can hear her 15-year-old cousin get shot and be killed in the call. And then so they call back and she picks up and it’s this six-year-old’s voice speaking to them for three hours. I translated about an hour of it for the documentary, and that was still one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.

It’ll stay with me forever. And they fired on this car over 350 gunshots on a family. They gave explicit permission. The Red Crescent has to ask permission to be able to go and evacuate people, medical workers, paramedics, emergency workers to go evacuate people. They got the permission. They were provided an approved route. They went, they were bombed. They were shelled by an Israeli tank, and the ambulance driver and his colleague were killed, and then she died. And finally, we covered what’s been less covered in this genocide is the arbitrary and summary execution of Palestinians by Israeli ground troops. So the same family, the Salem family that withstood that horrific airstrike then were sheltering in a building, Israeli troops come in, separate the women and girls from the men and boys, and then just execute all of the men and boys in front of them, shoot them point blank in the head.

But this documentary was only made possible by the work of these incredible journalists in Gaza who are relentless and who are suffering all of the things that they’re covering. They’re all hungry, they’re all displaced, they’ve all lost family members, they’ve all lost colleagues. The press vest has been turned from a shield into a bullseye.

Marc Steiner:

What you just described, I think is for most people unknown, people don’t realize exactly what’s happening inside of Gaza at this moment or southern Lebanon. And I think that the shocking part of your documentary work is bringing that to light, is hearing the voices of the Palestinians themselves, seeing the faces of mothers holding their babies who have been killed for no reason. I think it’s something that most media has refused to cover and people do not know what’s going on.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

And I think also a problem is that there was a so- called ceasefire agreement of last year of 2025 that was signed on October 10th and Israeli troops withdrew to what’s called the yellow line. They still control about 50% or close to 60% of Gaza. But the genocide is still ongoing. This is not my words. These are the words of human rights groups like Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International. They have all said recently, the genocide is ongoing. The conditions of life are being erased. Not enough life essentials are coming in. When we talk about aid, it’s not aid. These are life essentials, food, medicine, shelter materials. They are still killing Palestinians almost every single day in attacks. It’s not the same level of scorched earth bombing that we saw at the height of the genocide, but it’s still happening. And so the world’s attention has shifted as we have these forever wars happening, wars on Iran, wars on Lebanon.

People think that there’s a ceasefire and it’s over, but it’s not. And we can’t normalize what happened. We can’t start talking about peace and reconstruction. There has to be accountability, otherwise this will go on forever. The entire world order was always problematic and the

International law was always based on something to serve the powerful, but it has been completely upended in a way, in a new way. And all of this to protect Israel look at the lengths to which the government and institutions in this country will go to trample on academic freedom, to crush freedom of speech, all to protect Israel’s to continue committing genocide. It’s really beyond the pale, but I think it’s also mobilized people across the globe in a very, very profound way. We saw two, for example, general strikes held in Italy over weapons shipments to Israel. Organizing a general strike is extremely difficult.

Marc Steiner:

Very difficult.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

I think we’re also seeing the most internationalist movement on the left in this country that we’ve seen in a very long time. And all of this is coalescing around Palestine. So it’s a very bleak picture, but there are also, I would argue, signs of change.

Marc Steiner:

Let me pick up from that point. Watching the work that you do, one of my first reactions was, there is no hope. It’s done. The Palestinians are being slaughtered. It almost feels hopeless. There’s nothing to stop the madness from taking place. So expand on your last point in what you meant.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Well, I mean, it is very bleak. And I think we can all strive for that Gramsci way of optimism of the

Mind and pessimism of mind optimism of the will. And I don’t know that maybe this is another moment like 1967 where there’s a complete reordering of the power structures in Malisa last for decades and the genocide continues for a long time. And maybe this is the beginning of the end for Palestine. It’s possible. But it also may be the beginning of the end for Zionism, a very violent and could be long end, but the beginning of the end nevertheless. Historians like Elan Pape say this as well. And the reason for that is that there has been a massive political shift in this country. The Palestinian historian, Rochitaldi, said part of any anti-colonial struggle, the war is won in the metropol. So part of the liberation of Algeria was fought in Paris and it needs to be there.

And the metropolitan Israel, it’s not Tel Aviv, it’s DC and Washington. And so there has been very significant changes across the political spectrum. In this country, I’ve seen the largest protests for Palestine that I’ve ever seen in this country. We’re seeing for the first time Democrats and Republicans or mostly Democrats calling for ending weapon sales to Israel. This is unheard of even a few years ago. Unheard of. It’s by far not enough, but something is changing. You’re even seeing the right fracturing over Palestine with people, anti-immigrant and racist Tucker Carlson, even being against US policy in backing Israel. And so it takes a long time for these, because the US is far from being a democratic country in very many ways, but these things do eventually filter into the halls of power and policy might change. And policy has to change because Israel cannot exist without its backing from the United States.

I think that’s very, very clear. So there are signs of hope for that. Another sign for hope is that Palestine exists. Palestine has not been defeated. Despite all of this, it still exists. It fights back. There’s been just an efflorescence over the last 20 years of different kinds of movements, of the BDS movement, of new solidarities with groups like Black Lives Matter and the different movements around the world. There’s been different armed resistance movements that have popped up that have been very effective. So yeah, this could be, I think we’re in a moment where it’s either annihilation or liberation. I don’t think there’s anything in between at this point. And this can be over a very long time period, can be years, but I don’t think the myth of some two state solution or everything, I think that’s been shattered across anyone’s perception. Only ridiculous people even talk about that now.

And also the protests in this country, they’re not against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in Gaza. They are against Zionism as a settler colonial ideology. And that is also a massive shift that people are talking about that. It’s not just that they want to end the occupation and everything’s okay. They recognize that this is a settler colonial state that practices apartheid, that is a racist ideology that we can see in practice how it has unfolded over the last nearly 80 years.

Marc Steiner:

There’s so much to say about what you said. Over the last 50, 60 years, I’ve seen those changes take place inside the Jewish world as well, massive amounts of people losing.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Jewish voice for peace and other groups have led the charge in many ways.

Marc Steiner:

Not in our name. It’s been something that goes across the planet at this moment. And I wonder, given the horrendous nature of what you’ve seen, what you showed us in your documentary work, how it has affected you. I mean, you in the middle of a slaughter watching this go on. You can document it. You can tell people’s stories, bring their pain and the anger to life, but you’re witnessing it in real time.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

I mean, I have swung between rage and despair. It has been very difficult. I mean, a journalist that I worked with very closely, Hossem Shabet, was assassinated. I was speaking to him literally hours before he was killed. I felt like I could do nothing to protect him. And so no, it’s been very, very difficult. I feel like I’ve changed as a person because of this. I have covered … I traveled to Yemen and Syria and Libya over the years, and I’ve covered many conflicts, but this one where I’m not even there on the ground has affected me, I think, more than all of them combined. Speaking to people in Gaza every day has affected me. And yes, there have been moments, like I said, of despair where it’s like, what’s the point? What’s the point of this journalism? What’s the point if we keep doing this and it just keeps getting worse?

And it still is getting worse. I mean, sometimes

I despair, but the only thing that really keeps me going is that the people I’m speaking with want to get this out. They continue to call on people to broadcast their voices to tell their stories. And so we need to honor that. We need to keep working. And over the long term, I think it does have an effect, or at least it’s an archival record of what’s happened because the mainstream media in this country has abrogated its responsibility. And so we need to keep doing this. And also at the end of the day, it’s like, okay, fine. It’s difficult for us to document this, but it’s nothing compared to the people who are enduring it.

Marc Steiner:

Exactly.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

So you have to also keep that in mind that it’s not about us. It’s about what’s happening to Palestinians. That is in our name also. I’m not Jewish, but it’s happening as I’m an American taxpayer.

Marc Steiner:

Right, exactly. Yes, right.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

It’s happening in my name as well.

Marc Steiner:

Exactly.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

I’m responsible. And yeah, I oscillate between kind of having the little bit of hope, being extremely angry, being extremely despairing. And yeah, I mean, I think it’s affected everyone.

Marc Steiner:

We’re going to really, with these clips that we’re seeing from your documentary and more, and people actually should really see it on their own time and watch it and sit with it. It’ll take a while. You’ll have to stop. You have to think, you have to wrestle with it and hold it. The work you’ve done, I’m going to just say is extremely powerful, an important documenting of a genocide taking place in real time, real people and their lives and who they are. They could be my next door neighbors. The way you depicted this is who they are. And I think that the work you’re doing now is really critical to changing people’s consciousness and to changing the political forces to stop this. So it’s more than a documentary. It’s important political work, I think.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Thank you. I mean, I hope it … I mean, this also, this documentary came out in the summer of 2024. So much has happened since then. And there is still great journalism happening, great documentaries coming out, important ones documenting things like the shooting of children, the attacks on hospitals, the starvation policy, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, all of these things that are backed by the United States. There’s been incredible work on these things, and I encourage people to check out fault lines and Al Jazeera does a lot of this incredible work and other filmmakers as well.

Marc Steiner:

And we have to get them out. People have to see them to understand what we’re allowing to happen in our name in America. And Sharif, I really do appreciate you taking the time and also for the work you do. I think as someone who has produced documentaries, who has interviewed about documentaries for the last 35 years, your work is one of the most powerful I’ve seen in a long, long time. And you brought a story home for people to really wrestle with. So I want to thank you for your work. And whatever we can do to push it out there, I’m right here.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous:

Thank you, Marc. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your work as well.

Marc Steiner:

Thank you very much. And once again, I want to thank Sharif Adul Kaduce for joining us and we’ll be linking to his work so you can read and see it for yourself. And thanks to David Hebdon forrunning the program today, audio editor of Steven Frank for working his magic, Rosette Sowali, for producing the Marc Steiner Show and the Titleist Keller Rivera for making it all work behind the scenes, and everyone here at the Real News for making this show possible. Now please let me know what you thought, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@renewnews.com, and I’ll get right back to you. And once again, thank you to Sharif Abdul Kadus for his work and for his joining us today.